A provocative and deep criticism of South Korean capitalism, Squid Game offers several stark observations on the depredations of the system. Capitalism has forced working-class people like Gi-hun into such dire material conditions that blood-sport is seen as a lesser evil.
Football, or as it’s known here, soccer, is known as “the beautiful game”. A sport that unites young and old! But the truth is that football does anything but unite, it separates men from women, white people from people of colour, homosexual people from heterosexual people. It isn’t just the far-right leaning section of fans either, this is deeply ingrained in the history of the sport with its governing bodies such as FIFA and UEFA.
As part of strengthening the CYM’s commitment to a counter-culture, Forward will be periodically publishing poems submitted by comrades in the CYM.
“We encourage fans of local clubs to support the BDS call and boycott any of the clubs merchandise which is sponsored or supplied by Puma to put pressure on their local clubs to cut ties with the Israeli apartheid. It is the least we can do while the Israeli occupation and slaughter continues in Palestine, even when it is not reported by the news.”
“Although Orange is the New Black is gripping, for a while, it paints a grim picture using humorous sub plots, stories, and characters of a prison system entirely unfit for purpose… Anybody who views the series should take the funny sections of the series with a pinch of salt, because what it really shows is an unrelenting anti-working-class industry that thrives from the locking up, starving and punishing of millions of non-violent offenders in a vicious cycle of violence and re-incarceration.”
A sports club can serve multiple purposes. It actively provides a better way of life for young people stuck for options and promotes a healthier way of life. This is not just on a physical level, but also on an emotional and psychological one. Sports often teach mutual respect and break down barriers and stereotypes. They are community pillars that serve all of us in many ways – this interview and call out for continued donations is one small way the Connolly Youth Movement extends its support for this community pillar.
Why discuss a fictional group from a Japanese video game? Very simply because as the extraction of mako threatens the world of our characters, so too does the extraction and burning of fossil fuels threaten the death of our own. We see a similar trend among ecological movements here too. Groups such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and Earth First!, though correct in their analysis that climate change is a matter that will have catastrophic effects on us all, have disconnected the ecological movement from the broader class struggle, missing the forest for the trees, if you’ll indulge me.
In April 1989, Dynamo Dresden were playing in the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup. The GDR national team was set to qualify for the 1990 World Cup as they eliminated the Olympic champions, the USSR. If East German football was so strong, how is it almost non-existent in 2021?
This “Super League” shows the consequences that out-of-control, deregulated capitalism has on a working-class sport. The news, which had so many football fans up in arms, should be seen in the context of the consequences of capitalism that will commercialise anything in society, even sports.
With the considerable amount of leisure time resulting from a universal eight-hour day (an anomaly for the era), a passion for mass activity, excellent facilities available at no cost, public transport and free access to services, in 6 of the 8 Summer Olympics they competed in, the Soviet Union was at the top of the medal count.